CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The San Francisco man who burned an American flag last month in downtown Cleveland during the Republican Convention is challenging his misdemeanor assault charge, saying the "two media members" that prosecutors identified as victims actually claimed to have attacked him.

Gregory "Joey" Johnson, 59, was one of 18 people arrested July 20 after Johnson lit the flag on fire at Prospect Avenue and East 4th Street. Firefighters rushed to put the blaze out and police descended on Johnson and the other protesters.

Police reports for Johnson's arrest list Joseph Biggs and Jordan Salkin as victims because both suffered burns on their left hands. The affidavit for probable cause identifies the men as members of the media, as Biggs is a reporter for the far-right conspiracy news website InfoWars.

But in a video posted by InfoWars founder Alex Jones, Biggs claimed that he attacked Johnson as the flag was burning.

"I ripped the guy's shirt off and just punched him and kicked him and the cops were like 'ahh.' It was intense, man.," Biggs said in the video. " ... I was like, 'dude, I'm a f---ing veteran. My buddy's died for this country and you're going to burn this flag in front of me? Screw you. It's not going to happen.' So we just do everything we could ..."

Here is the full video. Warning: it contains coarse language.

Akron attorney Andrea Whitaker, who is representing Johnson, said Thursday that she has given the video to the city prosecutor's office. She said she is "hopeful they'll look at that and realize they should not be proceeding against Mr. Johnson."

Johnson has a pretrial hearing set for Aug. 22.

To make matters more complicated, though, Biggs now says he never attacked anybody.

In an interview Thursday with cleveland.com, Biggs said the attack never happened, despite the fact that the video clearly shows him claiming he punched and kicked Johnson. Instead, Biggs said "I wish I would have, since I was so angry." He said he ripped Johnson's shirt.

There were several reporters, photographers and videographers that swarmed the area before Johnson lit the flag on fire. Such an attack has not been documented.

"If [videos] showed me punching and kicking, they would have done something," said Biggs, an Austin resident, of the police.

City spokesman Dan Ball said he had nothing to add beyond what was in the police report.

Johnson is a member of the Revolutionary Communist Party, which protested throughout the RNC.

He also burned an American flag at the 1984 RNC in Dallas, which led to a U.S. Supreme Court opinion that said flag burning is constitutionally-protected speech.